Hannah Malyuk graduated in May of 2021 after finishing her nursing degree and is getting ready to work in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) as a part of the nationally renowned nursing team at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
After working at her hometown’s pharmacy, Hannah saw a possible future in medicine. She decided that getting a license as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) would be a great place to start, saying, “I fell in love with it and never looked back.” She said she “knew right away” that working in the NICU would be the place for her. “I fell in love with [the ICU side of medicine]. I love the high acuity patients and thinking about all aspects of their complex health needs. Add working with babies, and it’s the best of everything for me.”
While at Berea College, Hannah worked in Facilities, becoming a student manager after her first year. She’s found that many of the skills she cultivated for this job, like communication, critical thinking, and time management, transfer well to nursing and aids her when she needs to be empathic with patients or remain levelheaded in emergencies. In class, Malyuk found inspiration and support from her teachers, both in and out of the Nursing department, and continues to pull guidance from their relationships “when [she’s] making decisions that feel a bit larger than life.”
Malyuk was able to go abroad twice during her studies at Berea, the first summer taking her on a research and scuba diving trip to Honduras, while the second found Hannah in Tanzania as a part of a global health and nursing study opportunity. For Hannah, “[Tanzania] was a professionally rewarding trip,” while Honduras “was a personally fulfilling experience.” When speaking on the impact these trips had, Malyuk said, “it’s so important for me to chase the dreams I have outside of my nursing career. . . Getting outside of the bubbles we create for ourselves, I think, makes us grow so much. Not only that, but it taught me to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable and still speak up in those situations. That’s important in nursing, but in life too.”
Hannah will begin her work in the NICU at the Children’s National Medical Center in September 2021.
